OT: General Re: OT: "Claw" (was "I'm new at this")

Oops!   Didn't mean to start an "I-say-this-this-way-how-do-you-say-it".   
Sorry!   Anyway, to various:

1.) Yeah, it could be a diphthong, since most longish vowels tend to be a 
diphthong of some kind in many varieties of English, but not [aw] in "claw".

2.) The "awwww" vs. "ahhhhh" a *great* example of [A] vs. [O] for speakers of 
dialects that don't have that distinction normally!   Absolutely fantastic!   
I'm going to share it with the introductory ling. professors here so they can 
pass it on.

3.) I've never been sure how to transcribe the English "l" in SAMPA.   I'd 
sooner do it [k_hLA], but then there was that big discussion a couple months 
back about the "l", and the [5] notation, so I now I just use it anywhere.   
Oh course, in the word "claw", it more closely resembles a voiceless, lateral 
fricative, but what can you do?

4.) <<This is our old friend, the modern California dialect, where it seems 
/A/
and /O/ have merged, at least in a lot of words.  David Peterson, of all
people, should have recognized it.....;-)>>   Ahhh, yes.   Funny story; true 
story: My new girlfriend (I'M NO LONGER SINGLE!!!   PRAISE THE HEAVENS!!!) is 
from northern Northern California (to her it's just plain old Northern 
California, but to me, Berkeley's Northern California, whereas to her it's 
Central, so the distinction needs to be made), and her back vowels are still 
always fully rounded.   And while she doesn't have [O], she does have [Aj] in 
words like "ride" and "glide", whereas ours seem to be tending towards [@j], 
unfortunately.   I love listening to her talk...   :)

And so we won't be discussing English pronunciation anymore, I was taught to 
pronounce the Russian "i kratkayka" as [i-j], a diphthoing, whereas the 
traditional pronounciation is simply [i-].   How do you all pronounce it?   
;)

-David

"imDeziZejDekp2wilDez ZejDekkinel..."
"You can celebrate anything you want..."
               -John Lennon

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